Wordle 1819 Hint

 Hint: Brief work stoppage.

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New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: B

Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but when I think of Norton Motorcycles, I think of the older, legendary bikes like the Commando 850 (this one's a 1973, quite possibly the model my brother rode, while keeping it a secret from everyone in the family that he even owned a motorcycle -- photo by Piero at Dutch Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license):

I suspect most people think of that kind of bike when they hear "Norton." And there seems to be a big market for "retro" type motorcycles -- it's Royal Enfield's bread and butter.

So seeing their new models is kind of depressing. Randomly picked, but it could be any of them,  here's the Atlas (I couldn't find a "free to use" image).

It looks like every other consumer slop motorcycle of the current period, all kinds of fairings and touchscreens and science-fictiony sharp edges. And that seems to be true of all their current models.

Not that I'm the "new Norton motorcycle" target market. If I buy a motorcycle that's expensive new, I'll be buying it used ... and I doubt I'll ever find a used Norton in my price range, and I wouldn't even bother contacting someone selling one of these particular models used.

If I wanted a motorcycle that looked like the Atlas, I'd save myself a whole bunch of money and go with a cheaper Chinese brand. The idea of Norton in the public consciousness is "1970s or earlier outlaw," not "bit mobile assassing part in some cheesy 2025 action movie."

Maybe -- maybe -- a more comfortable suspension than in the old days, and alloy wheels instead of spoked, but otherwise the platform I'd want to see -- and think most potential Norton customers want to see -- is something visually comparable to the old Commandos. Just sayin'.

This is What True "Trump Derangement Syndrome" Looks Like

Any threat against the president is taken very seriously by the Department

That's an Interior Department spokesperson referring to some stains on some grass marking out the numbers "86" and "47."

If you think "8647" is "a threat against the president," that thing you're doing that you think is thinking isn't. The whole idea isn't just stupid, it's batshit delirious hallucinatory babble.